


like snow, like gold

by zeldalookslonely



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Feelings, Getting Together, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, POV Aziraphale (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-14 22:32:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19282531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeldalookslonely/pseuds/zeldalookslonely
Summary: And so, in The End, there is no End.  The earth continues to spin, children continue to grow, and with every day he fails to hear from heaven, Aziraphale breathes (as it were) a little easier.  Everything can go back to the way it was.  He says as much to Crowley, who purses his lips a bit over what must be a bitter grape.“Back to normal!” he says, tossing another grape in the air and catching it between his teeth.  “Drink?”





	like snow, like gold

And so, in The End, there is no End. The earth continues to spin, children continue to grow, and with every day he fails to hear from heaven, Aziraphale breathes (as it were) a little easier. Everything can go back to the way it was. He says as much to Crowley, who purses his lips a bit over what must be a bitter grape. 

“Back to normal!” he says, tossing another grape in the air and catching it between his teeth. “Drink?”

…

Anathema drops by the bookshop about a month after the close-call with The End to inform Aziraphale he’s to attend a meeting in Tadfield. He sets down the kettle he’d pulled out.

“A meeting?”

“Yes, yes, a meeting,” she says, “A get-together. A gathering. You must, at least, be aware of the concept.”

“I’m not sure I-”

“Crowley already agreed,” she interrupts. “He’s driving.”

“Oh, is he here?” Aziraphale asks, peeking out the window and abandoning the prospect of tea entirely.

“Nope!” she says cheerfully. “We’ll pop by his place and then head to Tadfield.”

“Wait, do you mean to say that this is today?” he asks, but she’s already shuffling him out the door.

“Urgent gathering,” she says dryly, palms up and shrugging shoulders even as she looks as though she’s fully prepared to nip his ankles if it becomes necessary.

After a short ride with a completely silent Anathema, Aziraphale feels huffy and out-of-sorts standing at Crowley’s front door. “I’m sure you could have warned me about this, Crowley,” he says grimly, barging in after a cursory knock.

“Angel?” asks Crowley, sprawled out on his sofa like a charming, lazy cat. Crowley is so thoroughly relaxed that Aziraphale feels his own tension seeping out, bleeding away, just looking at him. All it ever takes is a glance, and he can’t help smiling, especially when Crowley smiles up at him, head tilted and slow-blinking, eyes open and, mercifully, uncovered.

“Yeah, okay,” says Anathema, popping up beside Aziraphale and holding a hand out to Crowley. “It’s time to go. You’re driving to Adam’s?”

“Adam’s,” repeats Crowley, glancing from Anathema to Aziraphale and back to Anathema again. He shrugs. “Adam’s,” he says again, a confirmation, and gropes for his sunglasses. “How’s the boyfriend?”

“He exploded the microwave,” says Anathema mournfully, then brightens. “But the oven has taken a real shine to him. He’s been baking.”

.

Buttery evidence of Newton’s baking piles high on oval platters among what look like the ingredients for a considerable barbecue. Mr. Young mans the grill and Adam and his young friends run and shout and seem generally merry. Madame Tracy is radiant against the ever-surly Mr. Shadwell.

Aziraphale shifts closer to Crowley and asks in a whisper, “What is this meeting about?”

“You know more than I do, angel,” Crowley says, but grins, and lets Anathema pull him away, pointing to Newt and mouthing something incomprehensible.

It’s Madame Tracy who, finally, takes pity on Aziraphale and leads him by hand to large blanket spread on the grass. Young Brian and Dog the dog, both covered in patches of mud and dirt, lounge with baked goods.

“I’ve always liked a picnic,” says Aziraphale quietly, and Brian smiles and crams a pastry into his mouth.

“This is the first official meeting of the Armageddon Brigade, you know.” 

“So it is,” says Madame Tracy.

“Is there more trouble?” asks Aziraphale, for the first time feeling a spike of true concern.

“No,” says Adam, from behind, carefully laying a circlet of small flowers, cleverly tied together, over Aziraphale’s curly head. “There, now you have a proper halo.”

“How perfectly lovely!” says Aziraphale delightedly. 

“I made it!” pipes up Brian, and then, hesitantly, “do you want to learn how?”

“Only desperately,” says Aziraphale, quite truthfully, which is why Crowley next finds him in somewhat of a meadow with Brian and Adam and Dog, all four draped in jewels and gold of daisies and dandelion.

“There you are!” says Crowley, stopping short and laughing aloud. “Well, I don’t think I’ve seen anything more well-suited.”

“Come join,” says Aziraphale, making to tie a flower bracelet around Crowley’s delicate wrist.

“I think we _can_ make one that looks like a serpent, ‘Ziraphale,” says Brian, concentrating on the flowers in hands, tongue poking through his teeth.

“So clever!” says Aziraphale, tugging Crowley down to sit by him, looking him over. “Maybe a brooch?”

Crowley sits, clears his throat, but says nothing, and Adam drapes chain after chain of daisies around his neck.

“Or a spiral around his arm,” suggests Adam, “but how would we work the spacing?”

“Why are we here?” asks Crowley suddenly, sharply, acid-tongued harsh.

Adam looks up, startled, and says, “so we can all be together.”

“But why, dear?” asks Aziraphale gently, gently, gently, til the question is soft and mild-curious.

Adam breathes out, and responds with all the gravity and wisdom of a child who could have ruled the world but decided against it, “because that’s just what you do. You keep people near you, together, because you want to, and because that’s how you know they’re okay, and that’s how you protect them. You just want to.”

“It’s just what you do,” Brian echoes, and Aziraphale hears it, is dizzy with it, sick with it, and lets it sink beneath his skin anyway.

…

Aziraphale picks the fern because it looks a little frantic, a little disorganized, and because the small information card instructs that it needs to be watered every five days. A helpful young sales-woman helps him pick out a more permanent planter and the proper soil, and by the time he shows up at Crowley’s with the freshly re-potted plant, he feels very accomplished.

“I’m afraid I need a favor,” he says when Crowley opens the door. He steps inside without waiting for an invitation. Truthfully, he hasn’t spent much time here, so he looks around properly, thinking of _you can stay at my place, if you like_ , and wonders how much time he’s spent waiting for Crowley to stop by the bookshop without putting forth any effort himself. “A favor,” he repeats quickly, “my fern needs a place to stay.”

“Doesn’t it already have a place to stay? Your place?”

“Do you really think a plant could flourish at the bookshop? I think it needs more encouragement. If it could just live near your plants for a while, I’m sure it would get the right idea.”

Crowley takes the plant, examines it. “Drainage?” he asks.

“There are rocks at the bottom,” says Aziraphale. “And you won’t have to lift a finger. I’ll do all the work. Watering, fertilizing. I just want to give it the best possible chance.”

Crowley narrows his eyes. “I’m not going to change the way I treat my plants.”

“I know! I wouldn’t want you to. I just want…” He trails off. “Couldn’t it just live in sight of your plants? Just for a while. Just so it gets the idea.”

Crowley sighs, but surveys the room as if measuring the light, and sets the little fern down in a corner. “It can stay. For now.”

“Thank you! This is just the thing!” And then, hopefully, “Drink?”

Crowley grins.

…

Aziraphale shows up to water his fern every five days as promised, popping in and out quickly to gauge Crowley’s reaction at this uncharacteristic invasion on his privacy. But Crowley never seems annoyed, offers but never insists on watering the fern himself, and doesn’t stop visiting the shop as often, as Aziraphale feared he might. By the fifth trip, he feels more confident he’s not a nuisance and brings wine.

They drink until Crowley puts on music and then drink more, splayed out on the hard floor.

“Bebop,” says Aziraphale, so Crowley will make that particular face he likes. 

“If you say so,” says Crowley, but takes off his glasses to look at Aziraphale, and, _you can stay at my place, if you like_ , but Aziraphale is hazy under those eyes, unfocused, can’t ask, can’t muster the courage, can’t even open his mouth. Can hardly move but forces his hand closer to Crowley’s, lets his finger and thumb encircle Crowley’s wrist, his hold is a shade too tight but how can he let go?

Crowley blinks, but brushes Aziraphale’s wrist with the knuckles on his other hand and never looks away, never puts distance between them, allows himself to be held.  
…

It's only the next day when Crowley shows up at the bookshop with his car. "I want to show you something," he says, and Aziraphale is so pleased he can't even wipe the smile from his face as Crowley nearly mows down scads of pedestrians.

What Crowley wants to show him is a run down apartment building, apparently, but Crowley just rolls his eyes and drags him up multiple flights of stairs until, breathless, they burst out onto the roof, which is almost fully encompassed by a large, colorful, garden.

"Oh my," says Aziraphale, haltingly, stunned, "it's beautiful."

"I tend to it occasionally," says Crowley. "Side hobby."

But Aziraphale thinks its more than just a side hobby as Crowley shows him around, telling stories for every blossom, and smiling, gleeful, laughing.

"This is perfect," says Aziraphale, interrupting Crowley mid-sentence, and Crowley veritably blooms with pride, grinning as he nudges Aziraphale to sit down with him on a short bench - a bench surely built for only one.

"Not too warm for you?" Crowley asks, shrugging out of his jacket.

"I like it," says Aziraphale, and an idea strikes him, "Do you think you could go all," he pauses, tries to consider how to ask, but mortifyingly what comes out of his mouth is "snake-y?" and his body, without his permission, engages in a wiggle which is probably entirely unlike an approximation of how a snake moves.

But Crowley doesn't laugh at him. He stares, hard, rock-like, and Aziraphale wonders if he's broken something. 

"Not if you don't want to, of course," he says quickly, "I always hate to ask since I know you must get cold, you know, chilly, but it _is_ warm here, like you said, and-"

Crowley stands, and without looking back at Aziraphale, transforms. For a moment, Aziraphale can only stare. Crowley is so much bigger than he remembers, and more beautiful, shades of glimmering black and red, elegance, precision.

"Aren't you just lovely," he says, hand hovering over scales. "May I?" he asks, and Crowley nods, still without looking back. Aziraphale strokes just below his head and Crowley suddenly rears back, away, and shifts back to his usual self. He takes off his glasses and finally looks at Aziraphale.

"You don't have to do this," he says, angry. "I know you're trying to - I don't know, show me something, tell me something, but you don't have to pretend to - I would never want you to pretend -"

"I'm not! Oh my. I'm not pretending anything!" Aziraphale stands too, fluttering his hands for emphasis, "I did want to tell you - show you - that you are -" He pauses.

"Good enough?" Crowley guesses, a little softer.

"No. Yes! I mean, you are that. More than. I didn't know that was ever in question. What I meant was, you are - dear to me. Dear to me, and I want to keep you near me. I want to - keep you." Crowley is silent, and Aziraphale fights the urge to cover his own eyes with his palms, to hide away, and keeps going. "I have been, I think, cowardly. I haven't allowed myself to- that is, I couldn't even let myself _think_ \- about you. Not in the way I would have wanted to. Because I was scared, to Fall, to change."

"I've always known the stakes, angel," says Crowley sharply, "I never expected-"

"You _should_ expect, you deserve to expect - what I mean is. What I mean is, if I were to Fall, directly as a result of my association with you, I would have not one regret. Even if you were to - change your mind, later, it would be - it would have been worth it."

It's silent until Crowley moves a step closer and asks, echoing Aziraphale from earlier, "May I?"

"Anything," says Aziraphale, and Crowley stoops just a little to press his face into Aziraphale's neck, wrapping his arms around him, close, so close.

"I thought I'd lost you," he says, "Remember? When your shop burned. It was..."

"I know. I know. I wish I'd-"

"I want to keep you too," he says, and his grin is wide against Aziraphale's skin, hot breath, warmth. Love. 

"Oh," breathes Aziraphale, and laughs, joy and light, truth. Heavenly. In fact, he's trembling, and he stumbles backward into the bench, falling into it, bringing Crowley with him, a heap of angel and demon, tangled.

Crowley laughs, too, eyes alight, and says, "Home?"

"Please," says Aziraphale, "but-"

"A few more minutes?"

"A few more," he agrees, taking his hand, pressing it to his lips. "And then-"

"Eternity!" says Crowley.

"Eternity."

**Author's Note:**

> This has been done, and done better, but I had to get it out of my head. Title from Bright Eyes, No Lies, Just Love


End file.
